War

A Primer for Christians

Joseph L. Allen

War: A Primer for Christians provides a concise introduction to the main approaches that Christians have taken toward war and examines each approach critically.

Some Christians have supported their country's wars as crusades of good against evil. Others, as pacifists, have rejected participation in or support for any war. Still others have followed the just-war tradition in holding that it can be justifiable under some conditions to resort to war, but that then Christian love must limit the conduct of war.

In an updated preface and new afterword, Allen explores aspects of current international relations that have a special bearing on the context of war.

“Joseph Allen’s War: A Primer for Christians is just that: a succinct, fair-minded, wonderfully reasoned, and accessible account of the major Christian traditions on war—Just War, Holy War, and the Pacifist renunciation of violence. His book is also a primer in the further sense, that it will prime the pump for further discussion and debate as to when wars are just and how a nation might keep the means employed under restraints.”—William F. May

JOSEPH L. ALLEN is professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.